Signs of wandering
If the world is immeasurable, then galaxies can fit in my hands.
If frames don’t exist, images fall apart.
If I can make a photograph of a mountain, I can make a mountain out of a photograph.
I work at the intersection of construction and deconstruction, treating my practice as a process of fragmentation and revelation. I make paintings, photographic works and installations whereby I place the removal or destruction of material at the forefront.
Our sense of space lies at the heart of what I wish to explore in my artistic practice. In particular, I seek to question the apparent negation of space in our experience of two-dimensional objects by carrying out physical interventions in the materials that I often find. I scratch, sand, tear or chisel away certain parts of my works in order to delve deeper into their bodies and reveal a layering that goes beyond what is depicted. My practice is largely defined by the – sometimes unexpected – potential of the material I choose to work with.
The images and subjects in my works originate from magical childhood memories of a place in France, where I developed my fascination for nature, time and transience. A romantic sentiment is found throughout my works, but this melancholic feeling is often refuted by a more sober realistic glance at things.
-
With my latest series of works titled ‘Signs of wandering’, I investigate the plywood material I usually paint on. These works arise by carefully chiselling away various layers of the wood, uncovering the hidden inner contents of the plied boards. This process leads in many ways to unforeseeable results, whereby the boards – and how they have been constructed - largely determine the outcome of my actions. By accepting and preserving the natural imperfections the wood may show, my process lingers on a certain indecisiveness, asserting control over the material yet still leaving things to chance.
My time at the Frank Mohr Institute led me to explore the fundamental aspects of painting. What started out as a practice in painting figurative works mainly derived from photographic sources, led to a process of dismantling the actual materials I was working with. First I abandoned the images, afterwards the paint completely. In the end the question for me remained: what are the things I can truly do without? And what can the works do without?
